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DarkStar One Preview

Let the memory of the evening
Be the first thing that you think of
When you open up your smile and see me

Douglas Adams once wrote, “Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” And it's true. Space is big. It would take a long time just to map the smallest corner of the cosmos. There are all sorts of crazy stuff out there that we've never seen. But much like we learned in that one episode of The Next Generation where the Enterprise discovers the Borg, some things in space are better left alone.

The situation in Darkstar One: Broken Alliance is similar, in that there's an unknown alien threat out there heading towards the small corner of the galaxy you inhabit, and fast. But that's about where the similarities end. For instance, you're much more morally ambiguous as a captain than Jean Luc Picard and your ship looks nothing like a frisbee with a couple of rockets attached to it. In fact, in a lot of respects you'll feel more like you're playing a cross between Fableand Freelancerthan anything that ends with “Trek” or “Wars”.

Based off the PC game released in 2006, you're put in charge of the prototype ship, Darkstar One, and sent out into the universe to complete missions and unlock the games 330 solar systems in order to unify the several alien species inhabiting them and prevent the impending doom slowly creeping upon them. Of course, how you go about doing that is all up to you. If you want to be the clean-cut, altruistic Luke Skywalker type, then do so, or if you'd rather walk the thin line of good and evil, like a pimp-macdaddy Han Solo, you can do that too. Or you can just be a jerk and blow everyone up. The decision is up to you.

All of your petty human morals and quandaries aside, the real star of this game is the ship itself. You'll be able to arrange its armaments and abilities to match your personal combat style in about 200 possible combinations. And there will be a lot of combat too. Think of battles as full-on 360-degree FPS space dogfights where a combination of quick reflexes and well-designed weapons systems determine the winner. In skirmishes found later in the game, it will get to a point to when you'll only have 3-5 seconds to fend off each enemy and still come out of it in one piece.

Trade will also play a major role in your journey. Depending on what system you're in and it's specific supply and demand needs, you can make a pretty penny. And if you're more of a smuggler type, you can make some real money dealing in illegal goods, just like an intergalactic Scarface. Of course, you do risk being boarded by the space police if you do such a terrible thing and that in turn gives you a bad reputation. So if you don't want to be on the lam constantly, you may choose to play it by the book.

Darkstar One is shaping up to be the space-combat sim that fans of classic PC titles have been waiting for and didn't even know it. You can look forward to an expansive plot and 30+ hours of gameplay later this year when Darkstar One: Broken Alliance hits the shelves for the Xbox 360 exclusively summer 2010.